Weekend update

Glad to see Eric Clapton’s Saturday concert at the AT&T Center was a critical and a commercial success. Jim Beal Jr., who has seen as many shows as Clapton has played (and who is not a fan of wretched guitar excess), gave it high marks. And the crowd was estimated at 13,000. Not too shabby, especially during the NBA season.

The only thing it could have used was a musical surprise or two. The set list, according to www.whereseric.com, was exactly the same as the one we ran in Weekender from an Australian show Feb. 11. At least there was a surprise guest — Texas guitar legend Jimmie Vaughan, who showed up for the encore, which included “Cocaine” and the closing “Crossroads” jam. I feel obliged to point out that the latter is a Robert Johnson tune. Thanks, Eric.

Speaking of Clapton, the file photo that ran on Weekender Page 16 last Friday is one of my all-time favorites. The occasion was a royal reception at Buckingham Palace in 2005 that paid tribute to Britain’s music industry. There’s Queen Elizabeth II — the real deal, not Helen Mirren — shaking hands with Jeff Beck as Clapton, Jimmy Page and Brian May (who used to play in … Queen!) waited their turn. I presume she went down the row and shook everyone’s hand. It’s probably just as well no one briefed her on Page’s colorful past, or she might have exchanged a queenly wave for a handshake.

But maybe she’s more with it than she lets on. Maybe when she got to Page, she whispered in his ear, “I hear you’re quite the bad boy, what with the whips and Aleister Crowley and the mudshark and all. When did you find time to play guitar?”

Well, probably not.

Movie notes:

 Who knew there was such a demand for “City Slickers” on motorcycles? Despite horrible reviews — it scored a 16 (on a scale of zero to 100) on the Tomatometer at www.rottentomatoes.com — “Wild Hogs” raked in $38 million over the weekend to blow away the box-office competition.

Or maybe folks will see anything involving a big name or names on a motorcycle (see “Ghost Rider”).

The take surprised even the studio, Buena Vista Pictures. “The tracking services had us at best in the mid-$20 million range,” Chris LeRoy, Buena Vista’s senior vice president/general sales manager, said on <a href="http://www.boxoffice mojo.com" target="_blank"www.boxoffice mojo.com. Surprised me, too — I figured anything involving Tim Allen would blow a tire. Not counting his voice part in “Cars,” Allen’s last four films are “The Santa Clause 3,” “Zoom,” “The Shaggy Dog” and ” Christmas With the Kranks.” You’d be hard-pressed to find a more poorly reviewed body of work. Maybe William H. Macy canceled him out.

 Confusion was avoided last fall over two films with nearly idential names — “Flyboys” and “The Flyboys” when the World War I action film (the former) tanked at the box office and the latter (a kiddie adventure yarn) seems to have vanished without a trace.

The same-name scenario is looming again. While compiling the Coming Attractions list this morning, I noticed we have two pictures named “Rogue” on the horizon. Not “Rogue” and “The Rogue.” Or “Rogue” and “Rogues.” In fact, the film that stars Jet Li as an FBI agent tracking the title character (an assassin who murdered his partner) changed its name to “Rogue” from its working title, “War.” It opens Sept. 14.

The other “Rogue” stars Michael Vartan (“Alias”) and Radha Mitchell (“Silent Hill”) and involves a bunch of tourists menaced by a man-eating crocodile in Australia. Great. We just had “Primeval,” which involved a man-eating crocodile in Africa. “Rogue” should muddy the waters further. It opens April 20. It’s R-rated, so that could mean the croc shows up while Mitchell is skinny-dipping or something. We can always hope.